Ghosts and Memories
by Ashrial
Summary: Oneshot. The story of a ghost. The only emotion she can muster when the Confederacy comes for her family is guilt. Guilt that what is about to happen is her fault, that her father, mother, and sister are about to die because of her, because of her mistake


Disclaimer: I don't own Starcraft.

--

_She uses her cloak for the first day. In nine days the General will pass through this valley. The soldiers that precede him are no more than four days away. The cloak will be useless later and the only dangers she faces now are from rooky scouts. They are easy enough to slip past._

--

The only emotion she can muster when they come for her family is guilt. She knows she should feel fear or panic. Those the Confederacy wanted disappeared were never seen again. Guilt holds her in too tight a grasp though, a stranglehold that won't let any other emotion through. Guilt that what is about to happen is her fault, that her father, mother, and sister are about to die because of her, because of her mistake.

She feels them before she sees them, the marines oddly dulled minds brushing against hers as they pause outside the front door. They don't bother to knock, don't even bother to try and open it, the door shattering into slivers as a marine slams his shoulder into it with over a ton of armored exoskeleton. Gathered in the single main room of her house, her family doesn't even have time to look up from the evening news before they're being pinned against the wall, the hulking forms of marines keeping them in place, guns the size of small cannons poised inches from them. Her father's voice is a deep bellow as he demands to know what's going on and her mother's terrified scream mingles with her sister's broken cries of confusion.

The marines ignore her, sprawled on the floor where she'd fallen when they'd upturned the couch. Guilt keeps her motionless for a long moment, long enough for a ray of hope to break through: maybe they haven't seen her? Maybe they don't know she's there, maybe they'll just leave…

The marine pinning her father smashes a fist into his stomach. Her father grunts and bends over, going silent. Her mother and sister follow suit. Silence holds the room in its grasp; the only sound that of her father's muttered curses and the muffled sobs of her sister.

Two men enter into the room, glass from the broken coffee table crunching under their feet as they walk to where her seven year old form is sprawled on the floor.

"Stand up."

She's moving even before her brain processes the words, muscles betraying her, responding to the command in the words.

One of the men is dressed in a military uniform; the other is not. The one who is not drops into a kneel, drawing his eyes level with hers. They are covered by dark glasses and when he removes them with a flick of his hand she glimpses pupils like an endless void. She jerks her gaze away, refusing to meet his.

The man's voice rasps out, the hollow echo of a corpse. "Look at me."

Her head snaps around to face him. She tries to fight him, tries to stop him. It doesn't make a difference. His mind gives something equivalent to a chuckle before flowing into hers, sweeping her defenses away with a mere flicker of its power. She has no defense, cannot even scream as he smashes down the house of cards that is her mind and puts it back together, one card at a time.

She tries to hide it, the memory that will damn both her and her family, tries to bury it, tries to destroy it. He's halfway through her mind when he finds where she's keeping it. She fights him for it, hanging on to it with every fiber of her being, swathing it in layers of thought and memory. It does not even make him pause. He rips it from her grasp, makes her watch as he plays out the memory, of her picking up a pencil with her mind and tossing it across the room. Such a simple memory. How had they found her?

He pulls out then, his mind leaving hers in tatters. She can still feel where he was, the faint and lingering impression of satisfaction: he'd accomplished his mission. That was all that mattered.

She is a little less than alive but a little more than dead as the man stands up, dark glasses back in place, and gives a nod to the man in the military uniform. The marines cave her father's skull in with a fist, cut her mother in two with a burst of automatic fire, and crush her sister's chest with a careless snap of a rifle butt.

"Up. Follow."

The man walks back to the door. He doesn't bother to look back. He knows she has no mind left with which to resist. She picks herself up off the floor and follows him to the door, glass crunching under her feet.

--

_On the second day she takes shelter behind a boulder as the cloak fizzles out of energy. It is not unexpected, and she proceeds to open the pack she has carried with her. Inside is a cumbersome suit that has the high yellow grass that sways in the wind around her weaved into it. It is a simple thing, long outdated by the light bending cloak imbedded in her suit and that is precisely why it is her only chance to get close enough to her target. She has always been slender, and the suit masks even that, breaking up her silhouette and making her appear as nothing more than a bump in the grass._

--

It wasn't the darkness of her cell that eventually broke her mind. The dark she can cope with, pressing herself into a corner of the cell, the solid concrete reassuring her that the world still exists. It's the walls that eventually break her mind. With no night or day she soon cannot tell if she is awake or asleep, and that is when she feels it, the rasp of cement against her back as the walls begins to twist, like the coils of a giant snake choking the life from its prey, smooth cement rasping and hissing like scales.

She huddles in the exact center of her cell, as far away from the four walls as she can. She curls into a ball and prays that if she closes her eyes the blackness behind her lids will swallow her up, anything to stay away from the walls. She screams and sings and soon cannot even hear herself.

The floor crumbles under her until only the smallest lip is left, and on that she stands, a cliff over nothing yawning wide below her. She balances on the very tips of her feet, the walls snapping and leering and closing in. There is nowhere that is safe. It would be easier if she fell. Then she could be done with this. But maybe there is no bottom, and she will just fall, and fall, and fall, and there will never be an end.

She can't risk that. So she continues to balance, a galaxy of nothing spiraling away under her.

--

_On the third day she readies her sniper rifle, a 25-mm C-10. The weapon is not hers, but its grip is comforting in her hand, and she knows its owner would be proud. Her movements are slow and sure as she assembles it, careful that she is not seen. It is easy enough: she has devoted her entire life to it._

--

Time has passed. She continues to balance on the edge of oblivion.

"Are you ready?"

The voice jars the balance of her world and she teeters, almost falling.

"Are you ready?"

She gestures desperately at the voice to stay silent, tears streaming down her cheeks as she swallows back a sob. She must stay balanced. Everything and nothing depends on it.

"If you are ready, we can take you out."

Out? Out of where? This is her world and she must keep the balance. Can't the voice understand that? The slightest tremor and she will fall.

"Follow me and you can leave here."

Another voice from long ago once told her to follow. That was how she got here. Or was it? Had there even been a place before here? She barely moves her lips, careful to compensate for the slight movement. Balance. Balance. Her voice is not even a whisper. "Away from here? Away from the nothing?"

"Yes."

A whimper escapes her choked throat. "Please."

"If I take you out, you will follow our every order. Do you understand?"

She nods, her eyes closed as the world teeters on its axis. "Yes."

"Good. You can come out now."

She turns and leaps for the door as the cliff face finally gives way and the walls snap in for their prize, hungry and angry that she is leaving.

She lands on the smooth floor outside her cell and stays sprawled on the ground. It's solid, real. The cool steel plating on the floor is a gentle caress after so long with nothing. She looks up, and can see light again, a flickering bulb that is like a halo above the man's head. He is the same man from all that time ago, the one in the military uniform. He looks down at her. "Your designation here is Abbey. I am your handler. Disobey me Abbey, and you go back into the cell."

She smiles up at him and nods her understanding. He is another person and not just a voice.

--

_On the fourth day the first of the army that is to come passes through the valley. Scouts on Vultures and Marines in loose formations, armored feet churning up dirt. Her scope can filter through the dust cloud, and even if it couldn't, she has others ways of sensing her target. Overhead, Wraiths scream and a Science vessel hovers, looking for unseen enemies. It doesn't find her._

--

The man's name she soon learns is not for her to know, and all that she needs to know is that he is her handler.

Abbey follows her handler through twisting corridors to a large room of concrete and steel. Standing in the middle of the room is another person.

Handler stops in front of him. Abbey stops with him, her eyes fixed on the other person. He is a head taller than her so their eyes aren't quite level, but they meet nonetheless. She smiles at him. He begins to return the smile, a faint flicker at the sides of his mouth, but his eyes catch Handler's and the expression dies on his face.

Handler's voice is sharp and harsh and directed at the boy. "Ash, this is Abbey. Attack."

The metallic tang of blood explodes in her mouth as Ash's fist meets her jaw. The smile catches on her face. She doubles over, wheezing, as his fists connect against her stomach. Legs go next, swept out from under her, the blood in her mouth meeting the steel plating of the floor. He pins her there, arm twisted behind her back, the cool steel of a knife at her throat. His voice is younger and softer than Handler's, but carries the same edge. "Do you want me to kill her too?"

"No. That won't be necessary. Abbey will be partnered with you from now on. You will live and train with her from this moment forward. Show her around." The rubber of Handler's shoe squeals as he turns on his heel and walks back out, the door closing behind him with a thump.

The boy lets go of her arm, pulls back his knife, and slowly stands up. She follows him up, blood trickling from the side of her mouth. She wipes it away with the back of a trembling hand, eyes fixed on the boy. He is standing a few feet opposite her, head cocked to one side. "You're like me."

Her voice is scratchy from disuse and her mouth barely remembers how to form words. "What do you mean?"

"You died and are still here. That makes you a ghost. Like me."

An instinctual protest catches in her throat. How can she be so sure she didn't die? Maybe she did die in that cell and simply hung on, unwilling to fall. The boy is still looking at her. The words are easier for her to get her mouth around this time. "Why?"

He shrugs. "People like you and me are different. That's what Handler says. When we die we leave a ghost."

"No." The word is unfamiliar in her mouth, her tongue thick and awkward. "Why did you attack me?"

The boy looks at her, expression blank. "Handler told me to."

--

_On the fifth day she begins her slow creep forward. There are more troops passing by now, an endless stream that makes the landscape shudder under their armored treads. She moves only as far as the grass sways in the wind, an inch at a time. It will take her a long time to reach her target, but she has all the patience in the world._

--

They are watched every moment of every day. At least that is what Ash says, and Abbey has no reason to doubt him. The eyes are always there, watching, probing for any slip or mistake. They are not allowed weakness in this strange world of steel and cement and faint light.

The first lesson is combat, and Ash is a brutal teacher. He has been here much longer than she has, and she soon learns, has no conception of weakness. He does not hold back when he fights, a controlled fury behind each of his strikes that make it so that by the end of most cycles she is nothing more than one large bruise and barely has the energy to collapse on her cot. Handler oversees it all, regarding them both with the same look of careful neutrality and vague disgust. He likes Ash no more than he likes her, and that is little enough.

She eventually learns though, her arms speeding up to be able to match Ash's. Ash is not a sore loser and instead seems to welcome someone to fight against, his fists blurring as he blocks and counters and only occasionally lands a hit. The one to teach him how to fight she learns during one of their whispered conversation after lights out (they have to keep their voices just under ten decibels, the level at which the ears and eyes of Handler can pick them up), was an ex marine. He'd told Ash he'd murdered ten men before he'd gone through neural reconditioning, and that he'd kill Ash to if he ever disobeyed. He'd died a week later, a pencil through his throat during a training session. She hadn't asked how the pencil got there.

Their whispered conversations become something of a ritual. Wait six hundred seconds after lights out and if Ash tapped twice against his cot it was safe to speak. They have little to speak about; but that little they have, they speak about obsessively. They once spent the entire night arguing about what the exact technique for a correct punch was, and rose the next day exhausted. Abbey had proved her position by taking Ash down with a single hit. Ash had looked up at her blankly, and for a moment Abbey had seen the fury in his eyes that he kept locked away. She'd been a little afraid then. She was good at fighting, but not quite Ash's level, and she still remembered the story of his old instructor. But the fury had gone out of Ash's eyes and he'd begun to laugh. She'd giggled along, not quite sure why. Once they had started it was hard to stop and Handler's harsh bark telling them to had only made it worse. They had rolled around in laughter, months of pressure and tension released. It had come to a stop when Handler got the shock rods.

They had both spent a cycle in a cell after that, and Abbey learned that the void was still there, waiting for her. Their talk that night had been a subdued one. The next day Handler taught a new rule into them, the only rule that mattered: Obey your handler. Disobey your handler and you go back into your cell.

They both take the rule to heart.

--

_On the sixth day it takes her all morning to get the ration bar from the pocket at her hip to her mouth. She makes the mistake of passing over an ant hill and must stay utterly still as they bite her, feeling each excruciating pincer closing on her skin. The pain doesn't matter. She keeps silent and still._

--

They burst through the door shoulder to shoulder, the muzzles of their 25-mm C-10 Canister Rifles flickering around the room like the excited noses of dogs. The room is darker than night, but they have been taught to see with more than their eyes and the darkness proves little hindrance. There are no traps in this room, unlike the eight they have already covered: no turrets here, no mines, no flame grates, only two men tied and gagged on the floor. On each of their chests is pinned a sheet of paper, two words scrawled across it: _Your target_.

Abbey glances at Ash. He doesn't glance back. Even with a mask on she has been around him long enough to know when he is thinking. One of the men shifts, wriggling his body like a worm so that he can look up at them. Muffled noises come from the gag of the other.

Ash walks forward and flips the man still lying on the floor so that he facing him. The man's eyes widen in surprise and his face contorts in fear as Ash brings his rifle up to point at his forehead. The tip of his rifle is steady; unwavering as the man's head slams back, blood spurting up to meet the bullet.

Ash ejects the spent cartridge from his rifle and slides a new bullet into place with a soft click. He moves back to stand next to Abbey and gives the slightest tilt of his head at the remaining man. She stares at him blankly. He lowers the mask from the bottom half of his face. His voice is as soft as a snake's. "You have to kill him."

She catches the other man before he can squirm away, puts a foot on his chest to keep him still and aims down the barrel of the rifle at the point just between his eyes. The noise he is making through the gag is like the bleating of a sheep. She loads a new clip into her rifle, though it does not need it. Sights down the barrel. Pauses.

The pause hangs in the air, an almost tangible thing, a rubber band taut with tension, stretching. She leans her cheek against the barrel of the rifle, readjusts her aim. Waits, though she doesn't know for what.

"Do it." The voice is not Ash's. Through the side of her vision she can see that Handler has entered the room. He is at her side a moment later, towering above her. "Shoot. Kill him."

Her hand rips the mask from the bottom half of her face. "Why? What has he done?"

"Why do you care?" Handler is so close she can feel the heat of his breathe against her ear, his words like the relentless barrage of a train's wheels. "Why, does not matter. I am your handler, and I am giving you an order."

Her hand wraps tighter around the stock of the rifle, palm churning against the cool metal. She can see every individual hair, every pore between the man's eyes. He is still gargling into his gag and she can finally decipher the words: _Please no, please no, please no, please no, please no_….

"Do it. Shoot." Handler's voice grows louder with every word, a rising fury there. "Do you want to go back into your cell? Do you want to go back into there forever? Shoot."

Sweat trickles from her cheek onto the rifle. Can she really do this? Her finger tightens against the trigger. Such a simple thing. A twitch of a finger to decide a life. Her eyes close. She forces them back open. Do it. _Do it_.

The gunshot cuts the air like a whip. None of the blood reaches her. It pumps slowly out the back of the man's head, forming a small island of red in the ocean of grey cement. She lowers her rifle. "Good." Handler draws back, his breathe no longer against her ear. "Obey. That is all that matters."

He leaves then. Abbey does not take her eyes off the man on the floor. Ash is next to her after a moment, his hand on her shoulder, leading her out of the training room and to the weapons locker. They deposit their weapons there and continue to the shower. Her fingers are clumsy as she strips off her clothing and places it to the side. She turns the shower on and tilts her head upwards, droplets as warm as blood running down her face.

She twists the knob and the water becomes scalding hot, steam rising to consume the room, turning the world into a barely discernable blur. Even Handler's eyes will not be able to see now. The near silent _plop-plop_ of her footsteps herald her as she walks over to Ash. He is sitting cross legged, water rushing over him. His eyes open as she comes close, and she can see that he has his blank face up, his eyes cold despite the heat in the room.

Her voice is a whisper when she speaks, just under ten decibels, just quiet enough to avoid Handler's ears. "Why?"

He doesn't pretend ignorance, and his voice is just as near silent as hers. "Because you couldn't. Because you froze."

It would have been easy for him. He had always been good at manipulating things with his mind. To lift up a bullet and hide it just next to her rifle barrel, in Handler's blind spot, would have been simple. To ignite the bullet: child's play. "Why not let me fail?"

He stands in one swift movement, like a snake uncoiling. "Do you know what would have happened to you if you had failed? If you can't kill, then you are of no use to them. They'd have taken you away and put you in a cell, and it would have been like you never existed."

She doesn't move. "Why do you care?"

He turns away, wet hair hanging limply, curtaining his face. "You're the only person besides Handler that I've seen in ten years." He walks away, towards the exit hatch of the shower, his voice drifting back to her, barely carrying over the patter of falling water. "If you go I'll be alone. Don't freeze again. Don't ever."

She continues looking at the door long after he has left, water falling and pooling at her feet. Slowly, she gives a single nod.

--

_On the seventh day she is close enough to the column of troops to be able to smell them, the scent of powered armor mingling with that of sweat and men on the march. A patrol of marines pass within a hair's breadth of her, one of the Marines armored boots crushing the small finger of her left hand under his step. She is a ghost that has no pain left to feel, and he a colossus of muscle and adrenaline that can barely feel when bullets pierce through the layer of armor encapsulating him. They continue on their separate ways._

--

The concrete is cool and rough against her back as she leans against it, seemingly casual. Their target is a hundred feet to their left and playing with his child, swinging back and forth on a pair of swings. His two bodyguards sit on a bench to the side, trying to look unobtrusive in their pressed suits.

"We'll need to get closer." Ash speaks out of the side of his mouth, a faint and fake smile turning the sides of it. "Handler wants this done explicitly. In the open."

Abbey nods. Her gaze is on the playground opposite them, the one their target is in. It is an odd assortment of overly large toys, sun glinting off of their polished contours. When Handler had first let them out into the sun she had been blinded by it. She'd had to close her eyes and be content with the deep orange warmth that filtered through.

"Abbey?"

She opens her eyes from where they had closed, and looks at Ash. His head is tilted to the side, the fake smile still on his lips. "Ready?"

She nods and they push off from the wall, strolling along a circuitous route towards the playground. Ash's hand swings down and catches hers. She laces their fingers together and leans against him to ward off the morning chill. Bodyguards were trained to watch for certain signs in potential threats. A pair of teenage lovebirds out for a stroll did not match any of them.

"The two bodyguards on the bench are carrying semi automatics. We'll have to neutralize them quickly." He shifts, his attention focusing on her. "You've been acting odd. Is there a problem?"

"No." They reach the fence surrounding the playground and lean against it. The fingers of her free hand curl, interlocking around the cold and dusty wire, anchoring them there. Laughter makes its way to them through the fence, the faint sound of children in their natural environment. "Have you ever been to one of these?"

"Once. I was very young."

Her eyelids droop, and the playground becomes a sliver of bright colors and spinning shapes. "What was it like?"

Ash is silent for a long moment. He is still when he answers, only the steady rising and falling of his breath assuring her he's still alive. "Fun, I think." He points at one of the large toys, a cylindrical tube that the children are taking turns sliding through. "That one is like the drop chutes we used to train in."

"I've never…" Her voice trails off. The wind blows, sending a deep, gnawing chill into her bones that even the sun cannot banish. Ash eventually moves, slowly letting his head fall to the side, cheek against her hair. From there he has a better vantage point of the target. "We have to go. The target is moving."

"I know."

It is over quickly. The target's bodyguards are slow, and he is even slower. The knife gripped in her fist snags, tearing his stomach open. He falls to his knees, tries to stop the curtain of blood with his hands. The child begins screaming then, a high pitched wail that makes her want to gut him too. She settles for locking her eyes with his and reaching into his mind. He shuts up.

The two bodyguards are both dead, blood leaking down their bodies from a flurry of precise cuts. Ash reaches down to their still dying target and stabs his knife into his throat. He twists and shoves sideways, blood splattering onto the child.

Then they are gone, before officials can arrive, before they can be tied to the scene. Two ghosts flitting across a grey landscape, escaping all threat of retribution; just as they were trained.

--

_On the eighth day she brings the sniper rifle from where it had been dragging behind her up to her shoulder. The bullet she'd loaded five days ago is still there. She sights down the barrel and makes minute adjustments to its scope. Hunger coils in her stomach, but she cannot risk the movement getting a ration bar would take. She lays flush against the ground, rifle at her shoulder, eye on her scope, and waits._

--

Explosions rock the dropship as it speeds away from the last, dying, stronghold of the Confederacy. Wraiths scream by, engaging each other in aerial duels that twist the sky around them orange and yellow with their exhaust trails. Battlecruisers make slow passes at each other, taking it in turns to have their hulls rocked by the firepower unleashed by the other.

The dropship jars again as a ball of flaming wreckage plummets past them. Abbey presses the earpiece farther into her ear, the crackle of static muffling the chaos of voices trying to communicate, the screams of dying Marines mingling with the roar of Firebats and clipped bark of commanders. One thing is clear though. She turns to the cockpit, raising her voice above the din. "The defensive perimeter has been breached. Rebel forces are flowing through. We need to hurry if we're to make the drop point."

The pilot's voice bellows back, rough and utterly nonplussed by the devastation around them. "Yellin' at me won't make the ship go any faster. Be lucky to make it in one piece at all."

She leans back against her seat and sways as they hit a patch of turbulence. Across from her Ash does the same, fingers steepled atop the stock of the rifle propped up against his shoulder. He raises his voice a fraction to be heard over the roar around them. "How close are they?"

"Close. If they breach the secondary cordon the drop point will be compromised."

The dropship takes a sudden nose dives, ducking under the flare of an explosion. The pilot barely turns up in time, flattening out their trajectory and corkscrewing past the low lying buildings. Momentum throws them to the side as the dropship swerves and screeches to a landing. Their rifles are back in hand and they are slipping out the exit hatch almost before it is open. Outside the engines of the dropship churn up dirt and debris, wind whipping her hair in every direction.

They cross the fifty feet of open ground to the front of the warehouse opposite the dropship in the space of a heartbeat. She is the first through the door, senses going outwards to detect any threats. None. Ash is at her shoulder, rifle covering the still open door. He turns and looks blankly at the empty warehouse. "Where's Handler?"

"He must not have made it." She glances around the interior of the warehouse again; eyes trying to pry any clues from it.

"We'll have to wait. He should-" Ash whirls, kicks the door shut, slams a deadbolt into place, and jumps back. An explosion shakes the warehouse walls and metal shrieks as the door caves inward. Slipping to a now shattered window, she peers out. Burning wreckage and a crater are all that remain of where the dropship was a moment before. Marines run into the square, their high powered gauss rifles chipping away at enemies in the surrounding buildings, return fire cutting them down in turn.

"We don't have time to wait for Handler." She knows it's true as the words pass her lips. "This sector will be overrun in a matter of minutes."

"Our orders were to wait here."

"If he were coming he'd be here by now."

Ash's head swings from one side of the room to the other, looking for any kind of evidence to back him up. "We were ordered to wait here."

"Those orders no longer apply." Another explosion rocks the warehouse. "If we want to live we need to leave."

Ash glances around him one last time, then makes a curt nod. They exit out the door on the other side of the warehouse. It is not easy to slip past the rebel lines, but they are two ghosts on a battlefield and go unnoticed. Once past enemy lines it is easy enough to steal a ship and leave. They set a course for one of the worlds where they once assassinated a government official.

They land without incident and make their way to a safe house where they have money and false ident cards stashed. The world they're on is known as a resort world, so they take transport to one of the larger hubs of activity and book rooms at one of the many hotels there.

The room they are to stay in is cheery enough, green wallpaper and a fake plant in the corner. Abbey draws up the blinds in front of the window.

Ash sets the ident book on the table and begins to flip through it. "We're going to need a cover." He frowns. "Newlyweds or siblings?"

She opens the window and leans out, checking the surroundings for likely points from which they could be observed. There aren't many; they specifically chose a room with a limited view. "Newlyweds."

He squints down at the page. "James and Clarine?"

"Kate."

He looks up, eyebrow raised, head cocked to the side.

She leans farther out the window, her hair lifting in the wind. "James and Katelyn. Newlyweds out of Mara Sara on our honeymoon. We were childhood sweethearts. Grew up in the same neighborhood, four houses away from each other. Went to the same school. You proposed six months ago at a fancy restaurant. We got married three days ago."

He blinks. "The restaurant was called Clarions. You cried when I proposed."

"So did you."

He shrugs. "Kate and… Tristan."

She turns around and leans back, elbows propped against the windowsill. "Kate and Tristan."

He moves to stand next to her, resting his arms on the windowsill and leaning out. "Checked for surveillance?"

She nods. The wind blows sedately around them, carrying the faint scent of sand and salt from the coast a mile away. The atmosphere here is quiet and cool, the minds of the other vacationers in the building relaxed. She could fall into that pleasant feeling, the lull that so many others have carved out here with their minds. The edge of her forearm tickles against his. "We'll need to keep to a schedule. To blend in. What do newlyweds do?"

He tilts his head so that he is facing her. "Want to catch some dinner? Kate."

She smiles, gentle and quiet. "Yes. Tristan."

--

_On the ninth day the General's transport arrives. From here he will take command of his newly commissioned Battlecruiser. He must think that he is safe from enemies, because he exits the Arclite Siege tank he is riding in without as much as a glance around him. Not that he could see her if he looked. No one see's a ghost. She places the crosshairs of the scope just under his military cap._

--

It is on the seventh day that Abbey notices they are being watched. How they found them she doesn't know, and probably never will. Ash knows they're there as well, but he doesn't say anything. Neither does she. They don't deviate from their routine. Just as the sky begins to tint orange from twilight they set out from their hotel room to one of the smaller restaurants ringing their hotel. They have gone to a different one each evening since they got here, but tonight they go to the first one they went to after they arrived.

It is a small restaurant, built up right to the edge of a cliff. The cliff side wall is made entirely of glass and gives a view of the setting sun. Ash pulls out a chair for her before taking a seat himself. His tone is light, when he speaks. "Tomorrow we should go and rent one of the small outrider boats. We can tour the reefs." He picks one of the red tropical flowers from the bouquet on the table and tucks it behind her ear, thumb running lightly across her forehead. "And after that go farther. See how far we can make it." His hand trails down her face and falls to rest against her hand.

"Sir, Ma'am, will you be ordering now?"

Ash turns to the waiter. "We'll order in a moment. The last time we visited here I left a parcel. Could you bring it?"

Abbey fingers the flower at her ear, her gaze turned to the side, eyes taking in the orange and red display as the sun falls from the sky. Her voice is soft as she answers his earlier question. "I'd like that. We can go as far as the boat will take us." She turns back towards him. "Just the two of us."

He nods. His eyes are fixed on hers. The table is a narrow one and their faces aren't more than a foot or two apart. It seems much closer than that. When he leans forward his lips pass to the side of hers, breath tickling her ear, voice soft and simple. "He's standing behind you."

Her eyes are closed and she nuzzles his cheek softly, willing to lose herself there and yet unable to. "I know."

"How cozy." The chair Handler pulls over screeches all the way across the floor. "You could make a postcard."

Ash pulls back slowly, his lips brushing her cheek. "You didn't make the drop point."

Handler is dressed in ordinary clothes. It is the first time in the long time that she has known him that she as ever seen him out of a military uniform. "I was detained by the Terran Dominion. We have come to an understanding."

"That was quick."

Handler levels a cold look at Ash, one that promised the hell of a cell if he didn't submit. It is a promise he can no longer keep though he does not realize it. "The Confederacy is dead. The situation has changed."

Her voice is quiet. "You promised them that we would come back with you. Their once greatest fear now their greatest weapon."

Handler switches his gaze to her. "Precisely. That way everyone wins."

"Everyone." She repeats the word, rolling it along her tongue, tasting it. "You. The new Dominion. Everyone."

The lines around Handler's eyes wrinkle, the closest he is able to a frown. "The two of you are a military asset. All loose ends must be tied. If not for me you would be dead by now."

Her and Ash's gazes stay fixed on Handler. They don't need to look at each other to know what the other is thinking. The fingers of their touching hands lace together. Her eyes half close, head tilting to the side. "But we are. We're ghosts."

The waiter returns. He shrugs a long cylindrical bag off his shoulder and hands it to Ash. "Here is your parcel sir, untouched. Will your friend being joining you for the evening?"

Ash's fingers untangle from hers, their warmth gone. He accepts the parcel and leans it against his shoulder. "I'm afraid that our friend is in something of a hurry and will be unable to join us. We'll need another moment to order." The waiter nods and scuttles away.

Handler eyes the bag leaning against Ash's shoulder, a sneer twitching the side of his nose. "I wouldn't do anything foolish with that. You would never be able to make it out alive. And even if you could, there is nowhere to run to. You'll be found, and…" She can almost feel his fear, smell his anxiety. Idly, she wonders why she never realized what a coward Handler was. Without the threat of a cell he was little more than a sweating man barking orders.

"Do you remember when we first met? When me and Ash used to go through those endless bouts of sparring?" Her voice is calm, a storm lying underneath it. "Didn't you think it was odd that you never joined in? I always thought it was."

Handler moves a second before she does, jumping back, hand shoving his chair forward to shield him. The dinner knife in her hand catches against the wood, inches from opening his throat. The muzzle of the rifle Ash brings to his shoulder flashes, 25-mm rounds punching bloody holes in Handler's operatives hidden throughout the room before they have a chance to draw their guns.

Handler vaults over the bar to their left, out of sight. She doesn't follow, instead catching the handgun Ash tosses her and pressing her back against his. They have fought together their entire life and have no need for words or hand signals. They pivot, turn, and twist in perfect rhythm, covering each other's weak points, lines of fire complimenting each other, cutting down Handler's men before they have a chance to bring their guns to bear. Their aim is inhuman and their coordination a thing of beauty.

Automatic fire sends swaths of the roof falling and the former patrons of the restaurant run for the door, more than a few dying in the crossfire. The building crumbles around them, slivers of shrapnel and bullets whistling inches from them. Ash's weight shifts and she turns in time with him, covering him as he reloads, spent cartridge falling to the floor with a clatter, waiting for the click of a new one to replace it.

It never comes and Ash's back slams against hers, throwing their balance off. She whirls, trying to regain their dance, but Ash is slumping to the floor, blood streaming from his chest, hand still clutching his rifle. She catches him before he can hit the ground, arms cushioning him even as bullets chip away at the ground around them.

She doesn't freeze. She promised Ash she wouldn't and she will not break that promise now. Ash clutched in her arms, she dashes for the window, the glass already weakened by a spider web of cracks breaking against her shoulder. They fall, spiraling away into nothing as wind whips mercilessly at her face. She closes her eyes and holds tight to Ash. If this is how she is to die then she will not want to be alone.

A strange weightlessness takes hold of her, the shards of glass that have been falling with them outstripping her and Ash, leaving them behind as they strive for the ground. Ash's eyes open and he looks up at her, blood leaking from the side of his mouth as he tries to curl it in a smile, their descent continuing to slow. "I've always been good at picking things up with my mind."

She nods, his head cradled in the crook of her arm, one of her hands finding his, the other wiping the blood away from the corner of his mouth. "I know."

His hand comes up, bloody fingertips brushing the flower still tucked behind her ear. "I don't think we'll be able to make the boat tomorrow."

They have almost reached the ground and after all these years she cannot lie to him. "We still got our wish. It's just the two of us."

"That's something." His hand trails from the flower to her cheek, fingers already growing cold. They are utterly weightless, suspended in the crimson glory of the setting sun. His hand continues to fall and she follows it down, keeping his fingers against her cheek, her lips closing around his, desperate and hungry and never wanting to let go.

The ground is solid beneath them by the time she moves again, sun vanished and the world dark around her. Her lips pull back and she rests her forehead against his, eyes closed. Handler will be here soon, men swarming around and before him. She is too tired for tears, too tired for this world, but she finds the strength to pluck the flower from behind her ear and place it in his hands, wrap his dead fingers around it.

She raises her head, lips brushing his forehead, a last goodbye. Her hands fumble to grip the 25-mm rifle still clutched in Ash's hand, and she leans against it as she pries herself up.

--

_She nudges Ash's rifle to the side of the General, to the man standing at his elbow. Even from this range she recognizes him. Handler. He does glance around at the looming hills, perfect vantage points for snipers. He speaks to the General and gestures around them. The General says something back, and walks away, motioning for Handler to follow him. Handler does, steps hurried. She places the crosshairs on the back of his head._

_It isn't enough. She wants to see his face when she does it, when she takes everything away from him and sees if he can come back a ghost. A 25-mm sniper round punches through the back of the General's head and as he flops to the ground chaos erupts around him. Marines shout and hurry towards cover, eyes and rifles fixed on the hills, little more than ants from her vantage point. Closer at hand she can hear the scream of a patrol of Vultures, the leader yelling into his mouthpiece. The only stillness amongst the havoc is her and Handler. He has not moved, stuck in mid step. Ever so slowly he turns, eyes fixed on her even as far away as she is._

_The cool, polished metal of Ash's rifle is a gentle caress against her cheek. It still faintly smells of him, of gun smoke and countless hours of training. If she closes her eyes and breathes deep it is almost like he is there, at her shoulder, head resting against hers. She leans into him, tired and empty and wondering of things that could have been. Could ghosts come back a second time? Somehow, she doesn't think so._

_She opens her eyes and pulls the trigger._

--


End file.
